Grinnell College Libraries Join Central Iowa Collaborative Collections Initiative

Grinnell College, Drake University, Central College, Simpson College, and Grand View University have formed the Central Iowa Collaborative Collections Initiative (CI-CCI) to ensure the availability of scholarly materials held by the cooperating institutions through analysis of duplication, long-term agreements to retain designated copies within the consortium, coordination of future acquisitions, and agreements for expedited delivery and sharing of collections.

An analysis of duplication among the five collections is currently under way, focusing on materials published before 1991 and showing few or no circulations. The analysis will lead to agreements among the five institutions regarding titles that each library will retain for at least the next ten years, allowing the other libraries to discard those titles if they choose to. Some libraries will begin discarding copies  soon. At Grinnell, no decisions have been made regarding discarding copies, and no systematic discards will be conducted without faculty consultation.

The CI-CCI agreement will give Grinnell and other libraries greater flexibility to manage collections and space over the next few years. This is one of many efforts supporting that goal. At Grinnell, we also have talked with faculty about other initiatives, including:

• continuing conversion of print journal subscriptions to online subscriptions, and
• purchasing e-book editions rather than print editions for selected monographs.

In addition, Grinnell is leading a separate conversation among Iowa libraries regarding coordinated retention of print journal volumes that are reliably available online.

Over the long term, this shared initiative will allow participating libraries to:

• free space for pressing local and institutional needs, such as student study space, learning commons, classrooms, etc.;
• develop a shared collection-development approach that will allow the participants to make better use of acquisitions dollars by eliminating duplicate book purchases since the collections will be shared;
• offer a greater depth of materials.

Additionally, the collaboration lays the groundwork for further collaboration among the participants.

Academic libraries across the country are forming regional collaboratives to share print collections, reduce duplication, and ensure preservation of the scholarly record.